1. In the pull system, which of the following is the partner that begins the process of pulling?
Vendors
Quality control personnel
Customers
Executive management
2. Which of the following operations consulting tools are used in the cost impact and payoff analysis stage in the operations consulting process?
SPC tools and bottleneck analysis
Customer surveys and gap analysis
Decision trees and stakeholder analysis
Plant audits and statistical tools
3. Which of the following production process terms best describes a stage in a multiple stage process that limits the capacity of the overall process?
Buffer
Starving
Bottleneck
Blocking
4. Which of the following is a principle of reengineering?
Organize around the tasks
Capture information many times, at the source and where it is interpreted
Treat geographically dispersed resources as though they were centralized
Integrate the outcomes of parallel activities
5. Which of the following operations consulting tools provide summary performance updates for specific processes and are generally presented in graphical form with color coding of trend lines and alarms?
Decision trees
Stakeholder analysis
Process dashboards
Responsibility charts
6. Which of the following are possible examples of cycle times?
Time that a part waits in queue
Time it takes for an instructor to grade an exam
Time required to produce a batch of parts
Time to set up a new assembly line
7. What is the term that refers to "the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service, and speed" (as cited in Jacobs & Chase, 2011, p. 461).
Reengineering
TQM
Operations consulting process
Continuous improvement
8. Which of the following is a key metric associated with value stream mapping?
Defects per million operations
Lead time
Product demand
Fixed costs
9. Which of the following is one of the major types of stakeholders impacted by most consulting projects?
Board of directors
International government regulators
Suppliers
Other consultants
10. Lean production seeks to achieve high volume production using which of the following?
Minimize utilization
Minimize inventory of raw materials
Maximize inventory of working process
Maximize capacity
11. In contrast to TQM, what approach seeks radical change through innovation?
JIT distribution
Project management
Reengineering
Lean manufacturing
12. In setting up a kanban control system, you need to determine the number of kanban card sets needed. If the average number of units demanded is 1,000 per hour, the lead time to replenish the order for this item is 10 hours, the container size is 5 units, and the safety stock is estimated to be 5% of the expected demand, what is the number of kanban card sets needed?
210
440
1,050
2,100
13. Which of the following is a situation that likely will yield economies of scale?
Large factory with dedicated capacity that is able to produce twice the number of units as locally demanded
Factory that fully utilizes dedicated resources for information technology, material handling, and administrative support
Company with factories in multiple countries that produces products for local demand
Factory that produces low volume, customized products
14. The basic notion of economies of scale assumes which of the following?
A piece of equipment with twice the capacity of another piece typically costs twice as much to purchase and to operate
Total cost of output drops as volume increases
Average cost per unit of output drops as a plant gets larger and volume increases
Two plants can be operated at the same cost as a single plant
15. To implement a flow process in developing a lean system, a firm might do which of the following?
Reduce setup/changeover time
Eliminate some fixed costs
Improve capacity utilization
Build product in anticipation of demand
16. An advantage of a make to stock process is which of the following?
All units of output are unique
Rapid delivery of a standard product
It responds directly to customer orders
It allows the firm to avoid inventory costs
17. According to Little's law, which of the following can be used to estimate inventory?
Set up time times throughput rate
Process velocity times flow time
Process time times cycle time
Throughput rate times flow time
18. Which of the following is a factor that causes a diseconomy of scale?
Increased utilization
Increased transportation costs
Increased total operating costs
Increased product value and prices
19. If the run time for a batch of parts is 25 minutes on a machine, and the setup time is 75 minutes, which of the following is the operation time?
3 minutes
25 minutes
100 minutes
75 minutes
20. Which of the following production process terms best describes the situation when activities in a stage of production must stop because there is no work?
Multiple stage processing
Starving
Blocking
Buffering
21. Which of the following terms refers to a special type of flowcharting tool that is valuable for the development of lean processes?
Kanban production control system
JIT production
Value stream mapping
Kaizen